Tuesday, June 24, 2008

June Roses

I love the month of June! By now most of the spring work is done, the plants are in the ground, and there is time to just enjoy the garden. The weather is warm and sunny, accompanied by gentle breezes.....and the dog day heat of summer is yet held at bay. I love coming out into the garden first thing in the morning, to see what new flower might be in bloom. But one of the most special things about June is, of course.....the ROSES. Every cottage garden should be amply graced with this most beautiful and highly revered flower.


I will start the rose line up with a wild pink shrub Rose I am very fond of. This shrub is huge and round, about 18 ft wide. When my daughter was young, we picked hundreds of the buds to use for crafts. I love it's scent and free flowering lushness in June, and the shape looks good in the landscape the rest of the year, as well.



My only yellow rose is GrahamThomas , a David Austin English rose. It is a beauty, and has a lovely fragrance. It was the last rose in bloom for me, when we received our first snowfall of 2007.



Graham Thomas is not only pretty on the bush, but makes a wonderful bouquet. Featured here on a very old Hardanger table scarf my Mother gave me. It was made by someone in our family tree many, many years ago. Note that I have roses on my walls, too. ;-)




Heritage, another David Austin Rose, bears cupped flowers, prettily in-folded in the shell pink blooms, which have deeper color in the centers.

[Rachel, this is for you, since I know how fond you are of this one. Only wish I could send you the sweet fragrance, as well! :-) I have missed your garden visits.]




This wild red rambler, most likely a rugosa, came up from the roots of a hybrid tea rose that died. It grows tall and lanky, and can get rather messy. I always say I am going to cut it down, but then when it blooms in June, it wins me over once again.

Update: A reader has identified this as the climbing rose "Dr. Huey", one of the most common root stocks.



Pink Simplicity hedge roses, growing inside the picket fence, are the backbone of my cottage garden. There are ten on each side of the garden, separated by the center walk. This photo was taken in the evening just before sunset.... so the flowers really look like they are glowing.



A close up of Pink Simplicity. They are so pretty and bloom their hearts out, but alas, have no fragrance. They are also prone to blackspot. Jackson & Perkins now has a Lavender Simplicity with fragrance and disease resistance, which I would like to try somewhere in my garden.



This is an old classic rose of the Alba clan, named Konigin von Danemark (Queen of Denmark). I love the fullness of the quartered petals and the sweet Damask scent. It is very hardy and disease resistant.



And lastly, the humble wild roses that grow along the roadsides here. They have a special place in my heart, because they remind of the the Wild Prairie Rose, the state flower of North Dakota, where I grew up. Last year we had to be assigned physical addresses, instead of our rural route and box numbers. My submission of a name for our road was the winner, so we now enjoy living on Wild Rose Lane.....and I just love the sound of it. :-)


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"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck." ~Emma Goldman



24 comments:

Chelle said...

Love the roses Mama, especially the wild one and that quote. How I love that quote!

Anonymous said...

And I agree with Emma!
Yours are beautiful, and I am sure they bring much pleasure-on the bush, and on the table.

Jane O' said...

Your roses are wonderful!! I especially like the rugosas and the wild rose. I am attracted to that flat petal look more than the fancy hybrid teas. I don't know why. It was years before I could admit it to other gardeners. Now I just don't care.

ChrisJ said...

Such gorgeous roses and WONDERFUL shots. A pleasure to visit.

Kostas said...

Splendid photographs with roses and beautiful colours! Very good post!

Eve said...

I love roses and those are some of the prettiest I have ever seen. I am partial to wild flowers and wild roses in particular. We have a rose here on the MS Gulf Coast, called the Montana rose...go figure,,,but that is what all the locals call it. It is so pretty when you drive out into the rural areas and it is growing on the banks and straddling every fence you see. Just lovely! God is still the best Gardner of us all.

Sweetie said...

The roses are wonderful. The photos are so good that I can almost smell the roses.

Randy said...

Your roses are just wonderful! I was completely enchanted while looking at the pictures. Black spot it so horrible here it's almost impossible to grow them. We decided this year to start over again with antique roses to see if we have better luck.

Bev said...

Connie, thanks so much for your nice comment on my blog... I am gald to be back! Your roses are absolutely awesome!! The most beautiful pinks I have ever seen. I love them behind the white picket fence.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

What a beautiful bouquet of roses you have in your garden Connie. I will have to send your url to my sister who also grows roses. She will appreciate your roses and some might give her inspiration to plant some more. I am an admirer of roses. I only grow three very easy varieties, Rugosa, Carpet and one climber. They must take care of themselves here. I have so little sun to grow things in.

Marie said...

Your roses are stunning! The wild rose is wonderful too, I think it is my favorite.

Anonymous said...

Dear Connie-- I DO have the lovely scent of those roses from you! The bush you gave me is loaded with blooms, and I have a beautiful, fragrant bouquet in the house. I have reminders of you all throughout my garden, and tho' I also miss the Garden Tours, I am enjoying my own garden so much this year, over-grown as it is. I hope to see you and yours soon! Love to you, Rachel

Iowa Gardening Woman said...

What beautiful roses! I love the old fashioned pink fragrant ones also.

Rhonda said...

Oh my...how beautiful. There are a few I have considered adding to my cottage garden. My rose bushes are full at the moment, but the Japanese Beetles seem to get to them this time of year before I can see them in their glory. How beautiful yours have bloomed.

Victoria Williams said...

Love all your roses. So beautiful. I have one young Heritage rose. I've coveted one since encountering it at our botanical gardens.

Sky said...

beautiful photographs of such a universally sweet subject! :)

your roses are magnificent! i love the wild red rambler - hope you don't get rid of it.

we only have 9 rosebushes, and we seem always to be spraying fungicide. blackspot is forever showing up even though we water roots and not the bushes, water only in daylight and early so the sun can dry, and do fungicide maintenance. we keep the infected leaves isolated the moment we see one. how do you control yours and maintain such lovely roses?

we are in the seattle area and perhaps will just have to fight this since we have so many rains winter-spring even though summer is relatively rain-free.

ChrisND said...

Some nice roses. I, of course, am partial to the wild rose variety. Running the country we would always see some prairie roses.

If you want to take part, I put you on my list for Blog Tag in this post.

MrBrownThumb said...

Hi Connie,

Just wanted to stop by and thank you for the kind thoughts you left on my blog. Glad I did because this entry is awesome and your wonderful roses cheered me up.

O.I.M said...

hello connie. tried to leave a message but failed so i am trying again. your roses are divine. i tagged you on my blog today but it looks like you have already been tagged. hope there are lots of sunny skies your way. happy fourth of july.
cheers
irena

Catherine said...

Connie, dear, it was a true delight to get home and look you up! The roses are one of my favorites also. The petticoat-like look of the old fashioned ones are my favorites, along with their fragrance, of course. I'll look forward to the next "Note" from you. C

Gina said...

connie - do you find the david austin ones (GT specifically)hard to grow? I have been wanting to get one but I have a hard enough time with the pink simplicity from J&P (I lost 4 this year).

Tracey said...

Your roses are to die for . . . !

Maybe you can be my on-line garden coach, for when I delve into the intimidating world of roses . . . .

Kylee Baumle said...

Oh my gosh, that white wild rose is just so pure and simple, so beautiful! And how very cool that you got to name your street! I love the sound of it, too.

Anonymous said...

Your "rugosa" is not a rugosa. One, rugosas don't grow "tall and lanky". And two, your rose is more delicate than rugosas. The rose is probably "Dr. Huey", the most common rose rootstock. It's a climbing rose.